The Chaser Report - Secret Harbouring Doubts

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

In yet another seamless episode of The Chaser Report, Charles and Dom freely flow through the following topics: Secret Harbour, JK Rowling, the Epstein Files, Norway, and inflation. Plus, everyone is from Sydney University.---Listen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Well, Charles, we now live in a country which, according to the latest news poll, 30% are in favour of One Nation, 29% Labor, 19% for the Coalition. after the Secret Harbour by-election result on the weekend went to One Nation. I want to know which of those three numbers surprises you most, Charles Firth, after these ads. I'm shocked.

So, Dom, yeah, look, a bit of a mere culper. I know that I'm very rarely wrong on this podcast. But I think a few weeks ago, I actually said, look, I think One Nation's flesh in the pan that, you know, when you get to into preferences, it's going to be hard to be. for One Nation to get across 50%. You know, the Libs, some Libs would end up preferencing labour over One Nation and that they'd find themselves capped at sort of what their high water mark on the primaries is. The result in Western Australia shows exactly the opposite happened, that people were

freely throwing their second preferences at One Nation. But the Libs and the Nats actually put One Nation quite low on their preference flow. I think Nats had it at number five and, lives for number seven. But still, One Nation stormed home 5743 on the Tatea preferred. He's going to be the new local member for Secret Hub. A great name for a seat. Great name. I feel like Kerry Packer would have loved that. Oh, a tax shelter. Yes, it would have been some sort of tax shelter. But the interesting thing is Barnaby Joyce was on ABC Radio on Monday morning. Was it? And he was very erid. You can

see that he's going to end up being the leader of One Nation, right? I just think he's such a, I mean, whatever you think about him as a person, and he's a hot mess as a person, but he, he, he, he can, he can just, he can, he's got the gift of the gab. Like, he's sort of, he's a bit like Trump. He sort of, he wheeves these stories and you don't necessarily agree them, but you sort of, yeah, he sort of, because he was going on about socialism. What, what, what do you see, we're just got to get rid of socialism in this. country, which I know a lot of listeners are very concerned about how socialistic Anthony Alvonese is.

Um, sorry, quick fact check, Charles, didn't he used to be a national? Yes, yes. Oh, yes. And the problem with the national party, it's just a wash with socialists, don't. It's a wash with socialists. Hefty government subsidies for farmers, or is that not socialism? I don't know. I think socialism is whatever you make it.

I think it's just the thing that you don't want to be. If you're Barnaby Joyce and one nation. It's just a great yarn. Look, sorry, did Hans Christian Anderson get asked a million questions for, you know, when he was, you know, spinning his lovely yarns? No. He just, he just told the yarn.

Do you think J.K. Rowling, you know, took Harry Potter as a publisher. Oh, wow, there's a Pandora's box. The 57th person who read it and said, oh, yeah, okay, well, we'll publish this or whatever it was. sort of tale. Do you think then she spent the next fortnight answering questions about details? No, they're just great yarns. You don't have to go into the detail. You don't have to go, oh, socialism is the...

Well, you do... I mean, in J.K. Rowling's case, you do years later, if you have certain views about women and men and biology. But let's not go down that rabbit hole. Look, Barnaby Joyce is... Okay, bad example, bad example. Sorry, I had right-wing fuckwits on my mind. and.

Barnaby Joyce is a very fluid communicator. He's often a fluid-powered communicator. Yes. But he's a, no, he's always been very good at entertainment. Yes, that's right. And he probably should have been a talkback presenter. And look, I think the thing that it sort of, one of the things that he did say was Labor there has no laborists left.

You know, and it's funny because it's sort of. This is something about Bob Catter adjacent. They're basically saying. look, one nation is now the natural home at a working class in Australia, right? And I mean, that's, is that wrong? And I must say, I do think there's just a little scerick of truth, unfortunately, in what he was saying, which is, he said, look at the front bench of the Labor Party. It's not a labourer amongst them, right?

And you're going, well, yes, they're not. They're all from Sydney University. They're literally all from Sydney University, SRC, 1995. So literally the entire front bench was basically in the same faction. in the same year. With you? They all shared spit. With you?

With me? Well, I don't know. In a sense. But you know, everyone. But you were part of that scene. Yeah. 1995 you were in, what, second year? Yes, you could count the diversity of background on the Labor front bench.

Charles, that's really unfair. They're all part of different unions. Because I think the problem with the Labor Party is, is running a monoculture on the front bench. Wow. Some view that is a good thing, Charles, having a... I know. I don't know what nation are complaining about. Yeah.

Okay. So, I mean, this is... But this is a big change. And the question, I suppose, is, you know, 29% of the primary vote, if this were to be translated across Australia, I mean, Anthony Almanese is in serious trouble. But the number that I wonder about, Charles, is the 19% who were voting in favour of the coalition and Angus Taylor. Yeah.

I mean, that's a ringing endorsement. What, idiot. To get two thirds of the one nation vote at this stage is fascinating. It's fascinating that 19% of people go, oh yeah, Angus Taylor, yeah. The coalition's ready to govern. It's all. God, that's the definition of rusted on, isn't it? If you look at the Libs and go, yep, primary vote, one.

And so the point is the electorate's still angry. This is the thing. There's still a lot of anger out there. People want solutions of the sort that one nation proposing. It's popular and populist. Yes. And isn't the whole point that there's a sort of like, because it is just true that inflation means everyone's worse off.

Like we're going backwards. And we've been going backwards for years. And on a per capita basis, we've been going backwards for so long. Like I would say it goes back to before. the pandemic, I think, that we're going back on a GDP per capita basis. And I only think, the reason why, I mean, it so reminds me, we once worked at Triple M. Do you remember when we worked at Triple M? I do.

And so Triple M. We're broadcast to the people. Hot mess of a company, right? SCA, right? They're now, you know, merge with Channel 7. Yeah, that fixed everything, I think. To be even more of a whole thing. Merging with 7.

Well, one of the things that they had was, year or, on year, they would just have a declining audience, right? Like, it's just guaranteed thing. But if you ever looked at their annual report. Oh, yes, we talked about this. Yeah, they would always be growing, right? And it's because they'd be sort of killing off regional stations by rebranding the district of lemon going up.

They're kind of like the Borg of regional radio. And I think that led to a blind spot where the board was able to sort of pat itself on the back and saying, oh, yeah, we're growing. And I feel like that's what the Australian economy, like the political elites on both So the political class has for the last sort of seven years been going, oh, yeah, we're growing at a, you know, if you, if you take into account all the people we're bringing in, the migration that we've got, our economy is in aggregate growing, right? Never mind the fact that per person, everyone's going backwards. Everyone's going backwards on a per person basis, right? So, and I suppose one of the things, and I'm sure this is not a conscious thing, but one of the things that the politics of, oh, let's be anti-migration is about is going, well, hang on, we're not prospering here. And this whole idea that bring people in and we can prosper is just fixing your number that you're measuring on the aggregate basis.

But if you measured on the basis that I personally measured on, which is a per person basis because I'm a person, I'm going fucking backwards. Well, if you insist at looking at individuals and their lives, I guess unfortunately for the parties, that's kind of how we vote. But Charles, I know, maybe what we do is get rid of elections. Yes. Is that what you're thinking? Well, I'm just thinking, so did you see how Norway is having a scandal at the moment because it's all like their monarchy is in Episdain? Well, the king just passed away. Oh, the king passed away, but the person who's taking over is all mired in the Epstein scandal.

Isn't the queen or something? It's the, I mean, I think. There are strong links to Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the crown, it's the crown princess. Crown princess, yeah. I don't mean the one who lives in Sydney. She's now the crown princess.

It was the king's wife. Her name is, I was trying to fact check this. Meta Marit. She's now the king's wife. wife. So wait, wait, wait. So does that mean we've got an Australian as the queen? No, no, no, hang on a sec.

Let me clarify. So King Harald was 89. He's passed away. He was universally beloved. His son is now King Harkon the 8th. And so he's, but his wife is known as Meta Murrett, she had a very close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And so, but then the daughter, but their daughter has been studying at Sydney

uni. When you say everyone goes to Sydney uni, you're not kidding. Yeah, yeah. The princess has been here. She and Tim Ayers are best mates, I think. Oh, there you go. Oh, no, Tim Ayers is, you know, offspring, presumably. And so, yeah, I mean, she's been going to living in college in

Sydney. She had to go back because her grandpa was so sick, and she's now the crown princess. I don't know if she's going to come back to Sydney uni. But to be clear, she's not involved with Epstein. No, no, no. It's her mom. It's her mom. movies, right? He's now either the king, I don't know what she is, but I don't know if the king of Norway's wife is the queen, probably.

But I heard this interesting Norwegian commentator this morning. Well, if you want to listen to Norwegians rather than me, you might get some actual facts. But who was saying, the whole point is, look, it's kind of up to Parliament how to deal with this, right? Like, there may actually end up being a few extra safeguards that Parliament requires because the monarchy is on the back foot of you. it, right? And it did strike me that Australia doesn't even have that as a level of protection. We can't go, oh, well, you know, there's a whole of Epstein stuff going on with

the royal family. Our parliament will get involved and, you know, put some safeguards around the royal family. Because they're not even fucking here. They're across the other side of the world. So, Meta Murrett, yeah, she appeared in the Epstein files in February at least a thousand times or nearly a thousand times. But being, sorry, Dom, being mentioned is not proof. It's not proof. It's just proof that she knew him. Have you heard Donald Trump? Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's true. Just because you get mentioned. It's not a thousand smoking guns. It might be, it might actually be that she's mentioned because she didn't like hanging out with him much. She was just email and said, please don't contact me again. No, Jeffrey, unsubscribe.

Yeah. No, what she said. So amongst the quotes, amongst the quotes, she said, you're soft-hearted. You're very charming. Oh, no. It's such a sweetheart. Oh. You said, sweetheart.

And you tickle my brain. He also said he was on a wife hunt in Paris apparently. And she said the French capital's good for adultery, but Scandy's a better wife material. She signed one, she signed one email Love M.M. Mitter Marit. And the worst one probably was when she said, is it appropriate for a mother to suggest two naked women carrying a surfboard for my 15-year-old son's wallpaper? Yes. Yes, Mitzamarit.

It is. What the fuck? Particularly when in another scandal, I mean, poor old, the poor old former king, Harold, had a lot to deal with his heart probably wasn't in the best shape. Metamara's son. Now, this is a son she had before she married the Crown Prince, so not a blood relative of the former or current king, right? Yeah.

So the stepson of the current king has been under trial for rape. So something's going on in Norway, is what I'm saying. Yeah. Anyway, this guy, he's not part of the Royal Succession or anything like that. just the stepson of the king. The Chaser report, news a few days after it happens. So you know what we've got to do now, and I know, this is going to be, this is one of the hardest things we've got to do is we've got to link this back to

One Nation so that this episode ends nice and neatly. Well, I wonder whether One Nation approve of this princess coming back to Sydney, who's done nothing wrong. Yes, because she's an immigrant, isn't she? She's an immigrant coming here and studying it. No, but she's a white immigrant. Because, you know, have you seen how? they're sort of walking back their stance on immigration and it's all about like,

but it's the right sort and the wrong sort of immigrant. Right. Have you, which I think. I haven't seen that. It's a wonderful, it's a wonderful dog. But presumably Norwegian princesses they'd be okay with. And she's done nothing wrong, by the way, to be really clear. Yeah, she's, she's in the clear. Yeah.

She's just a harmless student. But she is an immigrant. That's true. Yep. So what do you do? Well, Princess Ingrid Alexander. But did you see the worst thing is Bassam Yusuf has been denied entry to Australia? I was going to go and see him at the ICC and they've denied him a visa.

Oh, another guy from Tony Burke, Minister for whatever it's called. Immigration. Yeah, has turned down Bassam Yusuf's entry visa. So there you go. Goodness me. Sydney Uni alum. Good on you, Tony. Of course, we had the pleasure of hosting Bassam Yusuf, what?

11 years ago now. Who delivered the Chaser Lecture? Chase a lecture. We brought him out and he was brilliant. I mean, he is brilliant. He's sort of like the John Stewart, really. John Stewart of the Middle East.

I think didn't John Stewart call him the John Stewart of the Middle East? I think that's right. He's actually Egyptian, isn't he? But he's a sort of, his show went out across the Middle East. I think it was hosted by Al Jazeera, wasn't it? I can't remember. But yeah, it's sort of at least there, I mean, so I'm sort of having trouble linking it all back together. Yeah.

What do we do? So, I mean, I suppose my point, why I brought up Norway was, you know, like, Australia as a nation doesn't respect itself. Like, we don't even have control over, you know, who runs the place, let alone, you know, mass immigration, immigration. immigrant, like the whole idea that, you know, like we don't, we don't have control over anything. Like, because isn't the whole point about wanting to restrict mass immigration, it's about lacking the control over, you know, who comes to this country and lacking the control over. Well, that's the John Howard line from back in the day. Yeah, but it's all, yeah, it's exactly. It's about control and about, and feeling tricked. I think there's a sort of,

I'm feeling tricked here by having all these people come. I mean, everyone says that it's good for me, you know, and good for the economy and everything like that, but I'm just not feeling it. Well, it's the funny, as we know, it's all tied in with housing, as we've discussed many times before. But is it just housing? Like, I kind of feel like, it's not. It's prices.

I mean, prices are just going up. I mean, even I as an inner city wanker, noticing prices going up, like quite dramatically. Yeah, I've had to cut back to single espresso's. It's really tough. Yeah. It's really hard to. Also, it's really hard to have, um, next single origin now. I'm only

to have Victoria. Never get a twist of lemon anymore in my coffee. I mean, only the one martini. But it is, we're in the age of $27 cocktails now. I don't even know what to, I don't even know what to do. But you know that that's all, like, I know that we could blame

immigrants. And I'm sure, you know, like around the world, that's who are being blamed. The AFD in Germany just won their first state election. So they're now you know, in control. in a high state, which is actually... But when is the rise of an anti-migrant movement in Germany ever caused any problems?

Well, I mean, you know, Bolivia is, like they, not Bolivia, what was it, Bavaria is where the Nazi party famously, they won the state government there and then they took power. They used the fact that they had control of a state government to then leverage that power. Why are we doing a daily news podcast? Why don't we do a daily news avoidance podcast? That's where we're going to. I know why are we talking about this? This is horrible.

But what I would say is, like, the reason why, you know, inflation will definitely stay, right, is because the US is in genuine trouble on the bond markets. Like, they are now at the point where they have to keep borrowing to keep paying off. Scott Besant, oh, I've got a whole theory about what Scott Besson's doing in the moment. Put a pin in that for another. The US dollar. But basically we're doing the weave. Charles, you're trying to do the weave.

They're keeping. You're trying to do a Barnaby Joyce. That's what this is. I'm doing it. I'm bringing it home. Bring it home. I promise. But it's printing, printing, printing money.

And the thing about having a dollar that is the sovereign currency of the entire world is when you print money, the inflation spreads not just across your own country. Oh, I see. It gets exported to the rest of the world. It happened during the Vietnam War as well. That's what stagflation was, right? And so it's spreading out. And this will continue, right?

Whether you've got mass immigration or not mass immigration, the funny thing is getting rid of mass immigration would lead to more inflation because you'd still have that sort of dollar currency thing going on, but you'd also then have shortages of labor in a whole lot of fields. And like, for example, I was looking at the list of skilled immigrants. One of the lists is massage parlor workers, like people who do massage, massage therapy. And can you imagine how much more, like a message is now completely unaffordable, you know, in this economy. But I don't know, our local place is like 150 bucks or something. I mean, you can't afford it.

You need the immigrants. You're deprived, don't you, Charles? That's very sad. Look, my main lesson from the weekend's by-election is not only that One Nation remains a really potent political force. Yes. And that Labor and the coalition are really good on notice. They're in trouble. They're in trouble.

Sydney University, SRC, 1995 is in big trouble, Dom. But my favourite thing about the Secret Harbour by-election is that Secret Harbour, did you know, it doesn't have a harbour. The secret of Secret Harbour is that there's no harbour there. Oh, I love it. It was such good branding. And it was, it was named after a failed marina development from the 80s. So someone started, like, think of Sanctuary Cove, only they didn't build it and there wasn't a cove there. So, I mean, I just think that's, what a prize in Australian politics that is.

The southern Perth suburb named after a massive failure. Congratulations, One Nation. You've done it. You've got that one in your column. The jewel in the crown. Yeah. Oh, except if not a crown. Not a crown, not a crown.

There's no actual crown. There's too much Epstein. Yeah. Oh, my God. You know the job that we don't have enough of in Australia. What? Norwegian princesses. There's none in the country at all anymore.

We should get her on. Ask her about her mom when she comes back. Yeah, said, send the university. I'll just mention SRC, 1995. You'll say yes. You know, I got elected to the SRC by accident in 1999, was it? 1999. Oh, yeah.

Without trying. As an attempt to try and exceed spending limits. Was Andrew Charlton on your SSC? Was he? He was on the SRC when I was, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He was the vice president. Is it?

Yes, I see. Yeah. There you go. So maybe we should revise it as, you know, 1990s, SSC. 1990s. Yeah, well, that's, I mean, it's a bit generous to Albo, I'd say. Because he was 89, wasn't it? He would have been around.

All right. There you go. I think we've, I think we've woven enough. Let's unravel, shall we? Yeah, well, we'll come back tomorrow and, look, if you're very lucky, I might even explain Scott Besant's assault on the, my theory about Scott Besant. Do? Yeah.

about what he's doing to be American economy. All right, we're part of our Conocoise Network. And you're channeling in Barnaby Joyce today. Go figure. I suppose it's topical. Yeah.